


Gundymas

by Antiaris



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Catholic Guilt, Historical Fantasy, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Paganism, Swords
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 13:31:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13705467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antiaris/pseuds/Antiaris
Summary: Lithuania tries to teach Poland some appreciation for his culture, and ends up teaching him how to use a sword.





	Gundymas

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 2 of Lietpol Week 2018, for the prompt "swords"! This turned into a much longer fic than I anticipated, lol. It started off as a short drabble about a completely different scene, and then that scene turned into the ending of this fanfic, which became so long that I had to turn it into a second chapter. But I wanted to go ahead and post at least part of it while the event is still going. Enjoy!

"Liet," Poland said quietly from where he lay in the soft grass, "tell me a story."

Lithuania had been on the edge of falling asleep here, warm under the light of the afternoon sun. Naps were a precious luxury he wasn't often able to partake in, spending most of his days advising the king - he was meant to be a "voice for the people", thought by the royals to represent the feelings of their subjects. But alright, he thought. Why not? "What kind of story?" he asked, shielding his eyes from the sky.

"I dunno, maybe you could tell me one about a bird. That cloud looks just like a bird, don't you think?"

Lithuania looked up to where Poland was pointing, and saw a big, fluffy cloud that looked kind of like a lumpy potato. "I don't have any stories about birds!" he said.

Poland huffed and crossed his arms. "Mmm... well then, how about a story from before we met?" he asked. "Tell me one about... the forest. Tell me a story about your life in the forest."

He laughed a dry laugh at that. "I have a lot of those," he said. "But, um... maybe it'd be best if we picked something else to talk about."

He heard a shifting at his side, and then the sun was blocked out by a blond head, and two bright eyes were hovering close above his own. "Why?" Poland asked.

They'd been married for a little while now, but it was all symbolic. After all, his betrothed was the soul of a Catholic nation - and the royals would never have the soul of their nation living in sodomy in front of God and everyone. They'd been dressed in their finery and said their vows, but it was a marriage of the kingdoms only. Tolys and Feliks had separate bedchambers, separate servants even, and Tolys had never even seen Feliks in his nightgown. At this distance, though, they were so close that he could see the lightest dusting of freckles on the bridge Feliks's upturned nose. Lithuania swallowed. "Because," he said, "they're not all, well.... of the Christian persuasion, if you know what I mean. I wouldn't offend you, Polska."

Poland pulled back and sat with his arms crossed. "I can totally handle whatever you've got! Tell me about your wild Pagan sex rituals if you want."

"Who said anything about Pagan sex rituals!" Lithuania sat up and faced Poland, mortified. 

To be fair, he'd been to his fair share of sex rituals before. He'd lived the majority of his life not thinking anything of sex, pursuing both men and women, and there was no shortage of partners in his homeland either, because everyone knew who he was and why he was important.

But like many aspects of his old life, that was gone now. He'd been married in church, under the eyes of the Christian God and the saints and the king and the bishop, and he was expected to at least make a decent attempt to give the appearance of a polite Christian gentleman. Which he tried to do, to the best of his ability. But it was an illusion that frayed around the edges, a thin guise on top of his true nature; he'd gotten enough sneers and condescending looks from the Polish royalty to prove that almost everyone at the palace thought of him as somehow less-than.

Poland himself always seemed jittery whenever the subject of Lithuania's gods, his mysteries, came up, and while Tolys interpreted his demeanor as more confused than malicious, there was still a vast gulf of misunderstanding between the two of them. And as he watched Poland now, sitting next to him with his smooth plaited hair and lily-white skin, he felt almost... dirty at the thought of sharing those parts of himself with the other boy. Ashamed in the presence of a "real prince", decked out in gold and red velvet. And he was angry at that - the shame he shouldn't have to feel.

Lithuania leaned back on his elbows again. "Actually, you know what - I do have a story for you."

Poland perked up immediately, and laid on his stomach at Tolys's side, and a little smile tugged at his lips.

"Once," Tolys began, "I saw a rusalka.

"Here, we sleep in beds every night. That's what the king wants us to do. But back in my capital, I went wherever I pleased. And one night I slept out in the woods, without any bed or blankets, on the grass."

"Ew," Poland interrupted, wrinkling his nose.

Lithuania tapped his forehead. "Shh," he said. "Just listen. So, I had slept out on the grass. And it was cold, and dirty... but the feeling of the Earth against your skin, and the midnight air - there's nothing like it. The forest hums with life, Polska.

"We were sleeping in a clearing not far from a lake. And in the middle of my sleep - I woke suddenly. It was still dark, with the barest rays of the sun beginning to shine over the horizon. And I heard the gentlest song... a haunting, fragile song. It captivated me, so I left my companions and went to see where the sound was coming from."

"Wait, there were other people there?" Poland asked, narrowing his eyes. "Who were they?"

"It's not important!" Lithuania answered. If this worked how he hoped, Poland would come away from it with a greater appreciation for his culture, but he wasn't quite ready to actually detail any orgies for the virgin prince yet. "Anyway, I followed the song through the trees until I came to the edge of the lake. I took my sword with me on my belt, just in case of danger, and I had my hand upon it - but in the center of the lake, I saw the most beautiful women you could imagine."

Poland chimed in again, but this time his voice was quiet. "What did they look like?"

Lithuania rolled over to lay on his side, propping his head on one hand, and smiled as the memory played vividly in his mind. "They were pale and thin, almost like ghosts, with silky black hair that came all the way down into the water. But their song rang out like a bell... almost like... the longing of a broken heart. I was not afraid. One of them looked at me - the one who was singing - and her eyes were the palest blue, almost like ice."

Poland was silent, and his eyes were downcast as he listened. Lithuania hoped that this was a sign that he wasn't completely repulsed by the story.

"Once a priest told me that rusalki didn't actually exist," he said. "Another one told me that they were unclean spirits trapped on Earth after death for their sin... and that seeing them was a terrible omen."

"That's not true!" Lithuania said. "They're a good omen. A sign of fertility!" Tolys looked into Feliks's face, and he saw confusion. "Not all of the world's mysteries are scary," he said.

Feliks fell silent at that, and rolled over to lay on his back. Tolys rested his head on the ground again as well. Perhaps Poland would never understand the beauty of his world.

"Y'know what you should do?" Feliks asked.

"What's that?"

"You," Poland said, reaching over and resting one fingertip against Lithuania's nose, "should teach me how to fight with a sword, like the one you had in the story."

"That's the part that stood out to you about the story?" Lithuania snorted as he held back a laugh. Feliks with a sword would be a sight to behold, that's for sure. "Why would you want to learn how to use a sword?" he asked.

Poland kicked his feet. "I think it'd be fun," he said. "Nobody's ever thought to teach me how to, uh... defend myself. And I want... to know how it feels, I think."

And so, Lithuania went about procuring some wooden sparring swords from the castle.

"Now," he said, tossing one to Poland as they faced each other just outside the horse stables, "hold it like this"--he demonstrated--"and take a wide stance, like mine."

Poland imitated it to the best of his ability. It wasn't bad, Lithuania thought, but there was no power in it - he stood gracefully, almost posing, like a dancer.

He swallowed in premature secondhand embarrassment. This wasn't going to end well, he was sure of it, and he was dreading the tears. For all of Poland's pride, Tolys had already seen him boast and parade around in the face of insults only to end up crying about them later in private... more than once.

"Alright," he said, "I'm going to do a simple lunge, and I want you to try to block it as best you can, so I can assess your skill level."

Feliks tossed his head and flipped one of his little braids over his shoulder. "I can totally do that!" So, Lithuania tightened his grip on the wooden hilt, and moved forward as slow as he could without ruining his form entirely.

Of course, Poland twisted weirdly on his first attempt to parry, tripped over his feet and landed on the grass with a shout.

For a moment, Lithuania felt guilty. He'd known this would happen! Why had he entertained this at all? He walked over and began to reach out and offer his hand.

"I can get up on my own!" Feliks said, and jumped up in one fluid motion. He lifted the sword again, and widened his stance, and looked into Tolys's eyes with a steady gaze. "Let's go again. Slower this time, so I can watch your movement."

Now... that was unexpected. "Are you sure?" he asked. "We don't have to if you don't--"

"I want to!" Feliks insisted. His hair had begun to come out of its braids, and a few strands stuck to his flushed pink cheeks. "Now I have to learn how to do it."

\--

For weeks they trained with the wooden swords. For the first five days or so, Tolys kept wondering when Feliks was going to give up; he expected him to grow tired of it at any moment, and go back to eating sweets and reading poetry and talking to his horses. But Feliks never did that, and soon enough they moved on to real swords - dull sparring swords, but ones heavy enough to get Feliks accustomed to the weight and feeling of being in a real fight.

On one day they stayed out sparring until the sun was setting, and only stopped because Lithuania tossed down his sword and sank to the ground, massaging his sore muscles.

"Come on, let's go for another round!" Poland said.

"I'm too tired! And hungry! Aren't you hungry?"

"Not at all! I wanna practice," he whined. But after a moment of silence passed between them with no sign of Lithuania moving to get up, he acquiesced and dropped his sword.

Lithuania closed his eyes for a moment and wiped a droplet of sweat from his brow, and when he reopened them, Feliks was sitting close. Tolys laughed breathlessly. "You gave me quite a workout," he said.

"What do you think, Liet? Am I doing good?" Feliks pulled up a tiny white flower from the ground and twirled it absently between his fingers, and gave him a look from up through his eyelashes. Lithuania could already feel the flush on his cheeks from their sparring, but it seemed to intensify, and he broke their gaze.

"You're doing amazing," he said. "I mean, don't get me wrong, but I never thought swordplay would be... to your taste. I'm surprised. I'm impressed, honestly."

He could hear the smile in Feliks's voice when he spoke next. "Liet, I'm gonna be the best swordsman in the world," he said.

"Is that so?"

"Yep." And then Feliks reached over, and brushed the damp locks of hair away from Tolys's forehead. He ran his fingers all the way back through Tolys's hair, nails scraping gently at his scalp, and Tolys felt a shiver go down his spine. "Sorry," he said.

Tolys bit his lip. "For what?"

"Because you're so tired," said Feliks. "You must be miserable out here."

"Not at all," Tolys said, looking up to meet Feliks's eyes again. "Before we started doing this, it'd been so long since I'd had a chance to... go outside and actually do something. Just endless palace business." He laid down on the grass. "I'm no good with politics, honestly."

"What are you talking about?" Feliks laid down next to him, on his side, and looked up at his face. "You can keep track of all that stuff much better than I can. Truth be told, I find it... deathly dull. And I always get distracted, and start thinking about other things, and then the king tells me that my head is full of air."

Lithuania couldn't help but giggle at that, because he'd seen it happen over and over himself. "I may be able to keep track of it, but it's not pleasant," he said. "It's such drudgery. I'm most at home out here."

"I like being out here with you," Feliks said.

Tolys breathed quietly for a moment. He still felt overly hot, so he reached down and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt. He heard Feliks draw a quiet breath at his side. "Oh - I'm sorry," he said, "if this bothers you I'll do them up again--"

He stopped short when he felt Feliks's soft hand on his chest, just below his exposed clavicle. Their eyes met. Tolys noticed for the first time this evening that Feliks had smudges of dirt on his face, on the bridge of his short nose and under his left eye, and the braids in his hair were half-undone and tangled. And it must have happened long ago, over the course of their many training sessions, but the paleness of his skin was gone - there was a ruddiness on his cheeks that wasn't from rouge, and his freckles were dark now. 

"Hey, Liet," said Feliks, "what if we stay out here to sleep tonight, just like you did in that story you told me?"

Tolys had a vivid recollection of the story at that - a vivid recollection of the real event that inspired it, of the warm bodies joined in ecstasy in the forest and the warmth of being held by another person's bare arms as the stars shone above him. He thought of how soft Feliks's skin always was when their hands brushed, how silky his hair always looked. How would it feel, to have those gentle arms hold him, to bury his face in that silky hair, without any clothes to be a barrier between them, and drift away into a peaceful slumber? 

But behind him, he felt the castle, and felt the presence of everyone within it - the king, the queen, the bishop - and it made his heart freeze. He felt the watchful gaze of Mary creeping up his back. And he wondered, faintly, if this was how Feliks felt all the time.

And suddenly Feliks was hovering over him, his small hands braced on either side of Tolys's head, and leaning in until Tolys could smell the scented oils still lingering faintly in his hair.

A kiss - just fleeting, a ghost of a touch between their lips, and then he and Poland both were pulling back, as if they'd drawn too close to a fire and been burned. 

Lithuania sat cross-legged and avoided eye contact with Feliks and stumbled and stuttered over an explanation. "I'm--I'm--I don't know what just, um--what came over me, Polska, I apologize--" And god, how he hated the fragility of how it sounded, and he cursed himself for pulling back at all.

Feliks was staring directly at him, wearing an expression of his usual cockiness that would have been convincing were it not for the bright red flush on his face and ears. "What's there to apologize for?" he said. "In fact, we should--"

"No," Tolys said. "I--We can't."

Feliks was silent for just a moment - and for just a moment, a sadness flickered over his face, a shock as if he'd been slapped. But as Tolys knew well, Feliks was a very good actor. "Fine," he said, and his voice held a carefully-measured flippancy. He stood and brushed the dirt from his trousers and tossed his head. "In that case, I'll be going back to my room."

**Author's Note:**

> "I have seen them riding seaward on the waves  
> Combing the white hair of the waves blown back  
> When the wind blows the water white and black.  
> We have lingered in the chambers of the sea  
> By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown  
> Till human voices wake us, and we drown."  
> \- T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"


End file.
